Urgent Action Alert: Faux News Tonight Makes M. Shahid Alam Its Latest McCarthyite Victim

URGENT ACTION ALERT: FOX News prepares to target M. SHAHID ALAM, free expression & academic freedom

Assalamu aleikum.

URL for the article
America and Islam
Seeking Parallels
By M. SHAHID ALAM
Counterpunch
December 29, 2004
http://www.counterpunch.org/shahid12292004.html


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URGENT ACTION ALERT:
FOX News prepares to target M. SHAHID ALAM, free _expression & academic freedom

Dear all

Here’s a rare opportunity when we know in advance that free _expression, academic freedom, and one of our friends is about to be blasted by the dark side.

M. Shahid Alam, essayist, poet, and economics professor at Northeastern University, was viciously attacked, including death threats, last month by several right-wing websites for two essays he wrote ``America and Islam: Seeking Parallels” and a follow up, ``Testing Free Speech in America,” both available at http://www.msalam.net.

Now FOX TV – probably the Bill O’Reilly show -- is targeting him for attack tonight. Below is a message from Shahid explaining the lead up to tonight’s attack.

Please watch the program and then inundate FOX TV with your responses to comments [at] foxnews.com.

Please also support Shahid and Northeastern University by phone at 1-617-373-2101 or FAX at 1617-373-5015.

Be part of the solution -- speak out against hatred and repression, defend free speech and academic integrity!

With hope and strength –

Gale Courey Toensing

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Fox Prepares to Attack Me

I published an essay, “America and Islam: Seeking Parallels,” in Counterpunch.Org on December 29, 2004. A day later, I began to receive nasty and threatening emails, all at once. These were orchestrated by a http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com. Shortly thereafter, other right-wing websites got into act, posting excerpts from the essay; these included jihadwatch.org, campuswatch.org, frontpagemag.com, freerepublic.com, etc. The messages posted on these websites were equally vicious, and some of them, containing explicit death threats, were ‘kindly’ forwarded to me.

What did I say in this essay? I made two points. First, that the 9-11 attacks were an Islamist insurgency: the attackers believe that they are fighting – as the Americans did, in the 1770s – for their freedom and dignity against a foreign occupation/control of their lands. Secondly, I argue that these attacks were the result of a massive political failure of Muslims to resist their tyrannies locally. It was a mistake to attack the US.

I followed the first essay with a second one, “Testing Free Speech In America,” where I elaborate on the points I had made earlier. This too was published in Counterpunch.Org on Jan 1/2, 2005.

The emails to me and the University continued for another two weeks, eventually tapering off. In the meanwhile, I was speaking to people at the ACLU, Boston, and the ADC, Boston. On the suggestion of the ACLU, I contacted the campus police and the police in my hometown to let them know about the death threats posted against me.

I had a feeling this was not the end of the matter. So yesterday, February 1, I received an email from Fox News asking for a TV interview; they were producing a program “on me.” At this point, I spoke to people at ACLU who advised me against going on the program. I received the same advice from other friends. I wrote back to Fox saying I could not do the interview but would be glad to answer any questions. They did not take me up on my offer. Clearly, this would not help them in their designs against me.

It appears that Bill O’Reilly is doing a series on ‘unAmerican’ professors on US campuses. Last night, my wife tells me, he did a piece on Ward Churchill. Tonight will be my turn. I expect he will make all kinds of outlandish accusations that will resonate well with the left- and Muslim-hating members of his audience. This will generate calls and emails to Northeastern and to me – containing threats, calls for firing me, and threats to withhold donations. I am not sure how well NU will stand up against this barrage.